I took a deep breath, trying to steady the storm inside me. My hands trembled slightly as I placed the call. The words had been simmering in my chest for weeks, and now, finally, they poured out.
"Consigliere, I want out of the alliance with Dante Russo. The marriage, the name, everything. I want to erase myself completely from their lives."
"Bianca, are you certain about this? I urge you to consider the implications carefully. You are the rightful blood heir to the Benedetti Family. Walking away from that means walking away from territory, from protections, from standing at the table that is yours by birth."
But I had already made my decision. Years of marriage had shown me the truth: the silent coldness, the endless betrayals, the way his eyes always sought her. Adriana. The woman who had been raised in my place after a nurse's life-altering mistake at birth.
Then came the accident, just a month ago. Adriana suffered injuries. I lost our baby.
And instead of offering comfort, Dante blamed me. Worse, I overheard his plan:
"I'm going to spike her drink at the next fundraiser gala. Stage it so she wakes up with another man. Everyone will assume she broke faith. Then I'll have grounds to dissolve the marriage. Everyone, the Benedettis, the Russos, the whole Commission, will side with me, and I'll walk away clean… finally free to be with Adriana."
That was the moment I woke fully to reality. No more pretending. No more waiting for a love that had never existed.
"I've made up my mind," I told the consigliere, voice steady, eyes firm. "He won't stop me."
Because I knew, deep down, Dante had never loved me.
Days later, I carefully placed the dissolution papers into an envelope and slipped in my wedding ring. The gold band clinked once against the heavy paper, and the sound was small and final in the quiet of the room.
And for the first time in years, I was free.
_
Dante had stopped deserving me a long time ago. Still, deciding to end things hadn't been easy. Not until the accident. Not until I lost our baby.
It had happened two weeks earlier. I was driving, Adriana, my adopted sister, riding shotgun. I'd had a single glass of wine, not nearly enough to feel drunk, but I didn't want to drive that day. Adriana insisted, and I relented. Then it all fell apart. A car slammed into us. Too fast. Too sudden. No chance to react.
When I woke in the clinic, the doctors told me two things:
One, Adriana had a fractured leg and a broken arm, but she would recover.
Two, I had lost the baby. My baby. The heartbeat I had clung to, the one I thought would save our marriage.
Instead of comfort or support, there was only blame. I knew it wasn't my fault, it was the other car, but because Adriana mentioned the wine, everyone decided it was my negligence. The Benedetti house closed ranks around her, and I felt the silence tighten like a fist.
"You should have let Adriana drive," Dante had snarled beside my bed, eyes blazing. Two of his soldiers stood by the door, faces blank, listening to everything. "She had an important sit-down with the Capos. And now? Look at her. You've ruined everything. All you do is sit in that estate and do nothing, and now this? You're useless!"
I blinked at him, the sterile lights flickering, and wondered how the man who had once held my hand so gently could crush it now. Yet this wasn't the first betrayal. It was only the loudest.
I had grown up thinking love meant giving endlessly, bending until it hurt, sacrificing everything. I believed that if I gave enough, love would come back to me.
Adriana and I were born the same day, in the same hospital, just minutes apart. A power outage, a terrified nurse, and a tragic mistake: our identities swapped. One nurse carried the guilt for decades without ever correcting it.
Adriana went home with the Benedettis, an old-money dynasty whose name opened doors from Brooklyn to Palermo, whose legitimate fronts hid laundering channels and tribute routes spanning the Eastern Seaboard. I, Bianca, the real Benedetti blood heir, was sent to a working-class couple on the outskirts, to a quiet, humble life full of hard work and love.
I never knew the truth until years later. The dying nurse finally confessed. Blood tests, legal documents, undeniable confirmation: I was the real Benedetti daughter. Adriana wasn't.
But by then, it was too late. Adriana had been raised as the golden child, the public darling, trained for the role of a mob princess, groomed in etiquette, loyalty rituals, and the quiet politics of who sits where at Sunday dinner. She fit seamlessly into their world.
The Benedettis welcomed me, yes, but not as a daughter. As a charity case, a correction of a mistake. Adriana remained the daughter they celebrated, while I was merely tolerated. Even Dante had chosen her.
At first, I tried convincing myself it was just admiration, old ties, the history they shared. Then, a few days after the clinic, I overheard him behind the garden wall during a church fundraiser at the Russo estate.
"I should have married Adriana. Marrying Bianca was a mistake. She's weak, ordinary… lacks spark. Adriana would have made sense. A real alliance. A power match," he whispered.
My hand flew to my mouth, hidden behind the hedge, frozen.
Then he continued.
"I'm thinking of spiking her drink at the next gala. Make it look like she broke faith. Then I can dissolve the marriage. Everyone would side with me, even the Benedettis. And I could finally be with Adriana."
My stomach twisted. He wanted me gone. That was the breaking point, the moment something inside me snapped, replaced by something harder, colder.
It was then I called Gia. The phone barely rang twice before she picked up.
"Gia…" I murmured, voice trembling. "I need you. My dissolution… it's final in five days. Can you pick me up then?"
There was a pause, then faint shuffling. "Wait. What? You're breaking the alliance?" Her voice cracked with shock. "Bianca… finally! You've finally seen reason. I told you. You didn't deserve that piece of garbage."
A bitter laugh escaped me. "Yeah… I didn't."
I rubbed at the crescent of dried paint beneath my thumbnail, grounding myself, pulling back from the edge. Then I shook myself back to the present when Dante's voice called from the kitchen.
"Babe! I made your favorite!"
I wiped my eyes and stood, walking toward the smell of food. The act. The performance. The perfect husband before the next betrayal.
In the kitchen, he waited by the stove, smiling, an apron Adriana had given him draped over his chest. His black signet ring caught the light as he set down a wooden spoon.
"Come on, sit." He kissed my cheek as if nothing had happened. Like we hadn't lost our child. Like I wasn't in pain. "We can have another one," he said casually.
I stared at the plate, stomach twisting. Mushroom risotto. Adriana's favorite. Not mine. My favorite had always been steak. He knew, or maybe he didn't. Because he never really noticed me. Never truly saw me. I had been nothing more than convenient.
Five days. That's all that remained before I could finally walk away and never look back.
